Roll With It
by Lavender Cat
Summary: If there's one thing I've learned from hanging around my fellow losers, its that you have to roll with the punches and learn to let things go. Request fic for paulinaghost. In other news, yay, I'm not dead!


"What do you mean I can't sue the show for wrongful elimination again?"

Courtney paced back and forth, the sound of her stomping footsteps being swallowed up by the plush carpeting in the green room. She was alone in the brightly-lit room, which was probably a good thing, given the volume of her voice was high enough to break glass at that point. Her PDA was pressed firmly against her ear, her now-stammering lawyer on the other end.

"Well, Courtney," came the crackly voice of Michael Cohen, "you…you weren't wrongfully eliminated this time. You got voted off fair and square."

"But…I…" Courtney stopped pacing and let the reality of the situation sink in. She, who was always ready for an argument, was at a loss for words. Michael was right - she had nothing to make a case against the show. She had been voted for fair and square. And there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it. Except, perhaps, get angrier.

"Look, you scum-sucking leech," Courtney growled, clenching her free hand into such a tight fist that she was sure her nails would break the skin of her palm and make her bleed. "My parents don't pay you to wimp out on me, especially when the lawsuit tree is ripe for the picking!" She stamped her foot for emphasis (although she wondered why, since Michael was on the other end of a phone line, hundreds of miles away; this thought quickly gave way to wondering why she was stamping her foot like a four-year-old throwing a tantrum). She continued her tirade. "If I tell you I want to sue Sheds and Elite bookstores for giving me a paper cut, you should be whipping out a legal pad and start making arguments on why they're at fault for my injuries!"

On the other end of the line, Courtney heard Michael give an exasperated sigh. "Courtney," he said, his voice level and sure. Courtney was a bit taken aback by this. She was pretty good at telling what other people felt by the tone of their voice (something she had picked up listening to her dad talk to partners over the phone for years), and she knew that, despite how mellow he wanted to seem, Michael was not happy. "I'm not sure how I can make this any clearer than I already have. You. Don't. Have. A. Case. McLean, as strange as it sounds, followed the rules to the letter. If I tried to pursue this case, the judge would laugh me out of the courtroom. And I'm not going to jeopardize my career that way just because you're being a sore loser."

Courtney nearly dropped her PDA. Michael had never taken this sort of tone with her, or any other member of her family. Ever. Just as she was about to unleash a tidal wave of anger into the receiver, Michael quickly said, "Look, I have other clients, ones that can actually back their case up. I need to go attend to them."

With a soft click, Michael's voice disappeared. There was nothing left but dial tone. He had hung up on her.

For a moment or two, Courtney simply stood stock still, her PDA still futilely pressed to her ear. Her own lawyer had hung up on her, refusing to help her with a second wrongful elimination suit against Total Drama.

No matter how many times she ran that sentence through her head, it still didn't sound right.

Slowly lowering her arm from her ear to the side of her leg, her PDA brushing against it lightly, Courtney felt the closest to crying since Bridgette had smashed her treasured violin to pieces. And even then, she'd cried more out of frustration. Right now, the feeling the encompassed her was a feeling of complete and utter defeat. She had been robbed of her only chance to win $1,000,000, betrayed by the guy she hated to admit she adored, and no one cared enough to help her out. Not even her own lawyer. She felt a rising heat behind her cheeks. The rims of her eyes moistened, threatening to gush at any second.

"No, no, no, no!" Courtney almost shouted, now incredibly thankful there was no one else in the green room to watch her yell at herself. "You will not, under any circumstances, cry." She quickly walked over to a large three-way mirror vanity with bright white light bulbs surrounding the sides of each, similar to the one used in the Confessional on the show.

She looked into the mirror, somewhat reluctantly. Staring back at her was a tanned, freckled sixteen-year-old girl, the rims of her eyes now beet red. Always an indication that she was about to cry. Gritting her teeth in annoyance, Courtney balled her hands into fists and furiously rubbed away any traces of tears. "You will not cry," she repeated, this time directing her comment to the girl in the mirror. "Crying is stupid and weak. You are not stupid and weak, so you will. Not. Cry. Understand?"

The girl in the mirror simply stared back at her. A little mascara was now smudged on her eyelid. The redness had faded a bit, but not completely. Courtney hoped no one would notice. The last thing she needed was anyone feeling sorry for her.

She knew she couldn't stay holed up in the green room forever. She was going to have to face the rest of the peanut gallery, and the rest of the world, at some point. A feeling of dread bubbled up in the pit of her stomach, making her feel as if she had food poisoning. Like she'd throw up at any moment. Facing the world was the last thing she wanted to do.

"Maybe," she said to the girl in the mirror, a little surprised at how small her voice sounded, "if I do throw up, they'll let me stay in here."

Courtney let out a sigh. Walking over to the plush leather sofa against the wall, she flopped herself on one of the cushions, pulling her knees up to meet her chin. The hot sting of tears stabbed at her eyes, threatening once again to flow forth. Closing her eyes tightly, digging her sharp fingernails into her arm, she mentally begged herself to stop.

Please don't cry. You can do anything else, just don't cry.

Then she heard the door open.

Her eyes shot open, as if they were spring-loaded. She trained them on her new visitor, who had yet to even notice she was sitting there, as his head was turned, and he was calling back into the hallway. Justin.

"Okay, give me a second," he called to someone. "I think it's in here somewhere."

It was then that he turned. It was then that he finally noticed her. The little, defeated girl, sitting in a fetal position on the couch, her well-manicured fingernails digging into her upper arm like needles, her face probably red and puffy from the threat of inelegant blubbering.

"Courtney?" His eyebrow was arched in puzzlement.

Courtney hadn't said a word to anyone since she'd arrived at the studio, let alone Justin. In fact, definitely not Justin. Especially after the…incident. That whole Justin-getting-a-crush-her incident. The one where she'd knocked him off a water-tower in exchange for immunity. Where she didn't even look his way as he left the competition. Where…okay, she'd rather not think about that right now. She had enough on her mind.

Like the fact that the same boy she'd knocked off a water-tower was now getting a full-on display of her in vulnerable mode.

Like someone had lit a fire under ass, Courtney sprang up from the couch, nearly loosing her balance and slamming into the coffee table full of snacks in front of her. Luckily, she caught herself before she could fall. Straightening her spine to stand with her trademark perfect posture, she tried to look as nonchalant as possible. "Hello Justin," she said, as indifferently as possible. She mustn't let him know what had been happening just seconds before he'd walked through the door.

The darkly-tanned boy stood, just looking at her for a few moments. He seemed to be taking in what stood before him, sizing her up.

Well, whatever he was doing, it made Courtney, as much as she hated to admit, nervous. "Did you come in here for something?"

"Uh, yeah," he replied. "Harold, Trent, and I were going to play some hackey-sack, and I think Harold's is in here somewhere. Have you seen it? It's blue with yellow stars on it."

"No, I haven't." It was a lie. She'd seen the hackey-sack sitting on the floor next to the big screen TV, but she wasn't about to tell Justin that. If he didn't find it, he might leave faster.

"Oh, well…thanks anyway, I guess," he shrugged, and turned, ready to leave and never look back. But he stopped. He looked back to her, still standing there with her straight spine, trying to pretend she wasn't on the verge of having a nervous breakdown. Then, his eyes widened a little as he said, "Um, are you aware that your arm is bleeding?"

Shocked, Courtney looked over to her arm, and, surely enough, a series of short, fat lines of blood were slowly etching their way down her skin. She mentally slapped herself. She must have broken the skin when she dug her fingernails into her arm to keep herself from crying. Great. Just great.

Now, Justin had turned completely to face her, and was closing the door softly behind him. "Do you need some help?"

"No," Courtney exclaimed quickly. Too quickly. If the stupid blood hadn't made him suspicious already, that surely would. "I…uh…mean…no, thank you. I can take care of it. Just a scratch. I'm sure there's a first-aid kit around here somewhere…"

"Here," he said, walking over to the vanity. Pulling open the top drawer, he pulled out a small first-aid kit. He walked over to the couch, fiddling with the locks as he did so. As he sat, the lid popped open, revealing a small spray-bottle of Bactine, a package of tissues, and a handful of band-aids and Q-Tips. Leave to Chris McLean to leave them with the finest first-aid kits money could buy.

He turned his eyes toward her, and then motioned for her to sit next to him. She did so, but sheepishly. After all, this was the guy she'd betrayed for the sole purpose of trying to win a reality show. Why on earth was he being so nice to her?

"You really don't have to, Justin," she said. "I can do it myself."

"You ever tried putting band-aids on your opposite arm? It's freaking hard," he said, tearing open the package of tissues. Gently taking her wrist, he pulled her arm closer to him and began dabbing the red streams, staining the flimsy thing bright red.

They fell into silence for several moments. The only sound that could be heard was their steady breathing as Justin sopped up the remainder of the blood. This whole thing was becoming more awkward by the second. Courtney felt that if someone didn't say something, she was going to explode. Then they'd have a problem too big for band-aids and Bactine to fix.

Just as she opened her mouth to say something, anything, Justin said, "So, can I ask how this happened?"

Courtney shut her mouth again so quickly, her teeth audibly clicked together. What was she going to tell him? That she'd been sitting in here, after have a falling out with her lawyer, stabbing herself with her own fingernails just so she wouldn't cry? Yeah, that would go over well.

But what else was there to say? She couldn't tell him she didn't know; he'd know she was lying a mile away. And if she just sat there and didn't say anything, he'd really start to think something was up.

The only thing she could really tell him was the truth.

Taking a deep breath, she said, "Well, I was having an argument with my lawyer over the phone…"

"You were calling your lawyer?" Justin was wadding up the sticky, red tissue and tossing it into the wire wastebasket at the end of the coffee table. "Why?"

"Don't ask," Courtney said dryly. As Justin popped the cap off the bottle of Bactine, she continued, "He finally got fed up and hung up on me. And…I guess I just sort of had a mini-breakdown. I felt like I was going to cry, but I hate crying, so I started digging my fingernails into my arm to make it stop. So, that's where these came from." She motioned to the now Bactine-covered cuts on her upper arm.

"I was wondering why your face was looking so puffy," Justin said, letting go of her wrist so he could unwrap a band-aid. "I figure you were either crying, or you were beginning an allergic reaction to something." He stuck the first band-aid on her arm, smoothing it out with his thumb. "And I'm not very good at dealing with allergies, so I was seriously hoping you were crying."

Courtney smiled a little. He was being so nice to her, so friendly. It was almost as if what had happened on the show had never happened at all. He was just being a white knight, helping a damsel in distress.

Thinking about what had happened on the show made her smile fade a bit. Without really stopping to think about it, she said, "Justin, I really need to apologize to you."

He looked up from smoothing out a second band-aid over the cuts with a look of surprise. "Oh," he said quietly. "About the show."

"Yeah," she replied. "I…I just…I thought I was doing the right thing." She chewed her lower lip a bit. "I wanted to win so badly…" she took her free hand and placed it on top of the hand that had just finished smoothing out the band-aid. "I just got so…obsessed with everything - winning, the money, Du…" She bit back the final word, but then thought better of it, and let it go. "With Duncan." She lowered her eyes to the floor. "You have every right to hate me. What I did was really low. And I wanted you to know that I'm sorry. Like, really, really sorry."

Another silence settled, even more awkward than the first. Courtney waited for the moment. The moment when Justin, angry at her for bringing up what she'd done again, stormed out, leaving her all alone again with her thoughts. Earlier, she would have welcomed the solace. Now, it frightened the living hell out of her. She didn't want to be left alone anymore. She needed someone here with her, at least just to feel the presence of a human being who wanted to be in the same room as her. And she was surprised to realize that that person she wanted with her was Justin.

Suddenly, she felt a warm, soft hand on her cheek. Opening her eyes, she saw that Justin's face had melted into a warm smile. Bringing his hand down to her chin, he said, "Don't worry about it. All is forgiven."

Courtney was a little more than shocked. "Really," she asked. "I mean, I knocked you off a water-tower. I cost you the million. I…"

Justin put a finger to her lips to keep her quiet. "I know," he said. "But if there's one thing I learned from hanging around my fellow losers, its that you have to roll with the punches and learn to let things go. Even if those punches come from a girl you liked a lot that knocked you off a water-tower."

Courtney smiled again. Taking his hand off her lips, and grasping it in her own, she said, "You have no idea, how much better that made me feel.

"Glad to hear I could help," he said. She felt him place his other hand on her thigh, the warmth of his fingers filling her with a giddy kind of happiness she rarely ever felt, even when she was around Duncan. Cocking his head toward her now-bandaged arm, he added, "You should be all fixed up there."

She didn't answer him. Instead, she kissed him. A quick, soft kiss on the lips.

His face was difficult to read. It was a strange mixture of happiness and disbelief. Finally, he said, "Well. I wasn't expecting that."

Courtney giggled. Taking his strong, chiseled chin in her hand, she pulled him closer, she said, "Roll with the punches, babe."

And she kissed him again. Longer this time, letting herself taste him. Feel the warmth of his beautiful body against her own. Forget the world was there. Just let it be them, wrapped in a euphoria that was their's and their's alone. He wrapped his toned arm around her waist, and pulled her closer to him. Their legs tangled into each other as she slid her arms around the back of his neck.

When they finally broke for air, neither said anything for a while. They just leaned back on the sofa, him acting as a pillow for her, her head laid on his chest, her hair brushing up against the bottom of his jaw. He rubbed his hand up and down her back, a tender gesture that made her sigh with pleasure. Then, remembering something, she turned her head to his face, looking into his chocolate-y brown eyes that now danced with happiness. "I lied when I said I hadn't seen Harold's hackey-sack," she said. "It's over by the big screen."

Justin chuckled, his firm abdomen bouncing with mirth. "I think," he said running a hand through her hair, "that, given the circumstances, Harold can find his own hackey-sack."

They both gave warm laughs before falling into each other once more.

**A/N: And there you have it. **

**This si for a dear girl I met on dA named paulinaghost. She's not only been incredibly patient in the freaking year it took for me to write this, but she actually forgave me for being so incredibly slow with it. I thank you again, paulinaghost. I hope this is enough to make up for the past year.**

**Cheers,**

**Lavender Cat**


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